The House Inside The Home

When I woke up, I pinched my neck to make sure I was still alive. My eyes tried to adjust to the dark, but it was useless. It was an eat-your-face kind of darkness. Pain ran from my shoulders through my lower back and down into my legs. All of my muscles felt like they were going to snap, like I was made out of porcelain. Humans weren’t made to stand for this long.

But, in the closet, that’s all I could do. There was no room to lie down.

It all started when Mom got home from New Orleans. She walked in, still wearing a cheap-looking, Bridesmaid-To-Be necklace. I laughed when I saw her. First of all, my aunt was like 45—why was she having a full-blown bachelorette party? Second, why didn’t Mom get changed? She flew all the way home like that?

I said something like “rough night?”, then went back to playing Rocket League. She walked over and stood between me and the TV. She looked tired, but also kind of frantic. Her eyes were red, but not hungover red. She looked like she had been crying.

I left the match and stood up to hug her. She flinched when I touched her. She pushed me back and asked if I could get some paper towels from the closet. I walked into the kitchen and she followed close behind. I turned back and asked how the trip went, but she didn’t answer.

As soon as I went in the closet, she closed the door. Then, I heard the lock click.

I thought it was some weird parenting tactic, something she learned while gossiping with other mothers over the weekend. My aunt always sent my Mom these magazine articles that talked about “tough love” and “parents, not friends”.

But, after a few minutes, she didn’t open the door. I tried talking to her, but she didn’t respond. I yelled, then screamed, then cried.

Nothing.

I kicked. I threatened. I apologized. I cried some more. But, nothing worked. All she did was shuffle around the house, moving things and calling people and yelling gibberish.

The first day was the worst. I felt like I was drowning. Between the hunger and the paranoia and the dehydration, I thought my head was going to explode. Then, once I had calmed down a bit, I started to listen more carefully to the phone calls Mom was making. The first one I could really understand was to a pool supply company.

For the record, we didn’t have a pool. Our townhouse barely had a backyard.

She asked the person if they had a list of all the household chemicals that could kill someone. I heard her pull out our crate from under the sink. She lied that she had a newborn and wanted to know what she should lock up. By her responses, I could tell the person on the other end kept repeating this is a pool supply company, because then Mom would say I know this is a pool supply company, I know I know I know.

“But you must know a lot about chemicals? Right?” she said, “Please just help me. I’m a new mom. Please.”

I heard her sort through the plastic containers. She would grab something, then ask What about bleach?, and, after a brief pause, she would say Great, thank you thank you. Then, I heard her pour the liquids into something else.

That’s when I started to feel sick. I’d held everything in up to that point, but I couldn’t anymore. My stomach was on fire. First, I pissed my pants. The warm, scratchy feeling made me more sick. I managed to get my jeans off before I sprayed shit into the corner. My throat ballooned to stop from gagging, but it was useless. I turned into the other corner and coughed up bile.

Eventually, beyond my control, I leaned back against the shit-covered shelves and closed my eyes. The sleep was short and chaotic. My dreams always ended with me falling down a flight of stairs. Then, I would spring awake into my pitch black, foul smelling hell.

Meanwhile, Mom kept making calls. She called a hospital four states away—Hello, Ohio Trauma Center? She asked about all the different ways someone could die from blunt force trauma. What about hammers? Remote controls? Baseball bats? Textbooks? She called a butcher—Which organs do you stab for a quick death? She called a construction firm—Could someone die from a 10 foot fall? What about 5? What height leads to paralysis? Hour after hour, day after day, I listened to her. The shit-piss-puke floor piled up. My limbs felt like broken pencils.

Mom didn’t need help killing me. I was already dying.

By day who-knows-when, I wrapped my fingers and prayed. I didn’t ask for escape. I just asked why. Why was Mom doing this?

Our last conversation had been cordial. It was the night before she flew home. I heard my Aunt and her friends in the background, clearly drunk. Mom said they were going to a psychic for some “last minute New Orleans fun” and that she would be on the first flight home in the morning. She asked if I was enjoying my alone time and if I spent all the pizza money. It was my first time ever being home alone. Finally, at 13, Mom trusted me enough to be home by myself. All I wanted to do was make her proud.

I guess I didn’t. I must have done something bad. Bad enough to die.

Just as I dozed off for the dozenth time in my standing grave, I heard Mom walk past. She was carrying something big and awkward, grunting as she tried to maneuver it. As she went by the door, she bumped the door knob. Objects dropped, clinking and clanking. Tiny shadows danced in the light along the bottom of the door. Now was my chance. I bent down, ignoring the horrible pains that shot through me. I reached through the shit-clogged opening and grabbed whatever I could. Mom screamed when she saw my hand. It was a deep, guttural sound, like an animal before slaughter. I grabbed what I could before her foot stomped down. She barely missed my fingers.

When I brought the objects into the fading light, I took stock of my inventory. There was a toothbrush, toothpaste, a small comb, and a razor blade.

I dropped everything but the razor blade. I ran its sharp edge across my finger tips. I didn’t feel pain.

I felt hope.

2.

I sawed at the wood as my fingertips bled. I couldn’t feel the pain. A sort of primal adrenaline kicked in, like those mothers who lift cars off their children. Only, in this case, I was pushing off the car Mom had dropped on me.

I cut until an opening appeared. Beautiful, fresh sunlight filled the closet. All my aches and nausea scattered like birds.

I was one step away from freedom.

As I reached through and twisted the lock, I heard my Mom from the kitchen. It was a single scream, and then footsteps.

By the time she grabbed my hand, the door was already unlocked. With my remaining strength, I twisted the door knob and pushed. She fell onto the door. I heard her feet slide against the floorboards, desperate to keep me inside. I pushed one final time. She slammed back into the wall.

“No no no,” she cried, “Please”.

I collapsed into the hallway and fell onto my back. It was incredible to lie down. Exhaustion filled my aches. All I wanted was for this all to stop, for Mom to love me again. I looked up at her, desperate to show her that it was me, her son. But, she wouldn’t look at me. Instead, she sprinted toward the kitchen.

I somehow made it back on my feet. I caught myself in the bathroom mirror. My cheeks were sunken and my eyes seemed to pop out of my head. I looked like a front-yard, Halloween skeleton; every joint pronounced and bent, ready to be formed into something human. I tried to speak, but my saliva was thick as glue.

“Maaahhh,” I managed.

I hobbled into the kitchen. When Mom saw me, she looked like she was going to vomit. She cornered herself by the stove and grabbed a knife. She pointed it at me.

“Get back in there,” she said.

I stepped closer to her. It was getting hard to see, like driving through the fog. Every few seconds, everything cut out. My chest filled with the irresistible urge to sleep.

“Maaahhhh,” I said again.

I looked around the kitchen, but I barely recognized it. All the knifes and utensils were wrapped in duct tape. The cleaning containers were piled in the corner, empty. On the kitchen table, there were hundreds of sticky notes, each one with a different name and number. They all had check-marks next to them.

There was writing on the walls, the same phrase over and over again. I tried to read it, but my eyes wouldn’t focus. I just needed to get close to her. Maybe if she felt my touch, she would remember me.

“Pleeaaas-aahhhh,” I said, “Iz meeeeee”.

“Stay back!” she screamed.

I was a few steps away from her now. She crossed her arms over her face. I reached out. She screamed louder. The sound hurt my brain. She crawled onto the countertop and kicked at me. With each movement, she moved closer and closer to the stovetop.

“Don’t be true, please God,” she cried, “Don’t be true.”

I reached out and touched her shoulder. Her skin was soft as rain. I swear I didn’t push her or grab her or, God forbid, strike her. I just needed her to feel me. When I felt her warmth, I started to cry. For all the nights of cold and filth and trembling legs, the feeling of skin on skin was immaculate.

But, the good feeling didn’t last long.

Her legs kept kicking, swinging along the dials of the stove. Her waist was completely on top of the burners now.

When I heard the sound, I knew exactly what it was.

Tist tist tist thwosssssssssh

She didn’t hear it. She was lost in her crying.

“Movvvv,” I tried. I grabbed her arm, but she kicked me. I fell back, my shoulders slamming the kitchen island.

I got back to my feet and went for the dial. I couldn’t reach it though.

I grabbed at her legs one last time, but it was too late. When she felt the fire, it had already climbed up her back. She pushed me aside and ran. Before I could speak, the sleepy, blackout feeling hit my brain like a stampede. I tripped backwards, then was gone.

Next thing I remember I was looking up. The room was filled with bright light. The edges of my vision were blurred, like a dream trying to come to life. The sound my Mom made was beyond human. They were screams from another dimension. Her pain was deep as the ocean, and I could feel it in my own body. She flailed and fought for the surface, but she sank deeper into that unimaginable dark, where skin curled from heat and eyeballs exploded in their sockets.

I turned to watch her frantic waltz. The flames had eaten her skin. Her mouth was merely teeth and muscle, biting for words, as if they could save her.

But, they couldn’t. Nothing could.

She did a few laps of the kitchen, and then collapsed into the hallway. The fire climbed the walls.

I watched the flames without emotion. It was like walking into a theater halfway through the movie. I could see, but I didn’t understand.

The dark feeling came back.

In a moment, I was asleep again.

The next time I woke up, I managed to get on my feet.

Instinctually, I went to the sink and turned on the faucet. I drank like an animal. The water filled me with the purest joy. My thoughts were reforming, my muscles singing, my glue mouth turning back into spit.

But, that happiness was short lived. As my senses came back, I could smell again. It reminded me of the first days of autumn, when your windows are open and the neighborhood is alive with firepits. Mom and I used to love that part of the year. The air was crisp and the fires filled every room with a bittersweet, charred flavor.

I turned to the source of the smell. The object was half-hidden by the hallway. All I saw were, what looked to be, two burnt logs. Slowly, I remembered Mom and the kicking and the stovetop. But, just as easily, I could forget those details. My brain was too tired. The dead body was just another thing.

When you spend so long in darkness, your brain can lose the ability to feel. Feeling comes from light, from rest, from the taste of fresh air. Those luxuries were dead to me. I smelled a campfire. I tasted charred wallpaper. All I saw in my Mom’s burnt corpse was a series of atoms, crudely arranged in the improper shape.

I wasn’t interested in any more pain. I was only interested in answers.

I walked to the kitchen table and looked at the post-it notes she left.

There were names and numbers for every kind of business under the sun. Next to each number, she wrote the name of a crime—starvation, poising, stabbing, shooting, hanging, blunt force trauma, drowning, etc. She had checked off nearly a hundred crimes and the businesses who, she assumed, would know something about them. But, more than any other business, there was one.

Psychics.

Mom had called nearly two dozen psychics.

I looked up at the walls. Now, I could see the message she had written. She repeated it over and over, covering every inch of space with her penciled markings.

The person you love most will hurt you in unforgivable ways

The person you love most will hurt you in unforgivable ways

The person you love most will hurt you in unforgivable ways

The person you love most will hurt you in unforgivable ways

Over and over and over again.

I thought back to the last conversation we had. I heard the drunk voices in the background, begging for shots. I listened to the distant sounds of marching bands trailing up Bourbon Street. Mom yelled through the noise.

“We’re going to a psychic for some last minute New Orleans fun”.

I lowered my head. I couldn’t look at her frantic handwriting any longer. I heaved for air.

Outside, the spring wind pressed against the window. It sounded like a storm was coming. Mom never liked to open the windows. She always said she payed for air conditioning and heat, why settle for a temperature you can’t control?

For my whole life, I understood her logic. But, now, the smell of her burnt body was making me sick. I stood up and opened the window. The cold breeze came inside, as if it had been waiting.

I sat down at the kitchen table and closed my eyes. The familiar darkness was comforting. I tried not to think. Instead, I listened to the hiss of the wind. I felt it’s ice-cold hands wrap around me. I wanted to bathe in that feeling. Wind meant the earth was still turning, that time was still moving. I didn’t want to close the windows and pretend I was stronger than the wind. If I didn’t know it then, I knew it now.

There were certain forces too powerful to control.